No.

9
Online Edition
SPECIAL SALE--any 100 Dalkey titles for $500

On Realism and Art

Roman Jakobson

The following essay first appeared in 1921. It is collected in Readings in Russian

Poetics, edited by Ladislav Matejka and Krystyna Pomorska.

Until recently, the history of art, particularly that of literature, has had more in common
with causerie than with scholarship. It obeyed all the laws of causerie, skipping blithely
from topic to topic, from lyrical effusions on the elegance of forms to anecdotes from
the artist's life, from psychological truisms to questions concerning philosophical
significance and social environment. It is such a gratifying and easy task to chat about
life and times using literary works as a basis, just as it is more gratifying and easier to
copy from a plaster cast than to draw a living body. In causerie we are slipshod with our
terminology; in fact, variations in terms and equivocations so apt to punning often lend
considerable charm to the conversation. The history of art has been equally slipshod
with respect to scholarly terminology. It has employed the current vocabulary without
screening the words critically, without defining them precisely, and without considering
the multiplicity of their meanings. For example, historians of literature unconscionably
confused the idealism denoting a specific philosophical doctrine with a looser idealism
denoting behavior, motivated by other than narrow considerations of material gain. Still
more hopeless was the web of confusion surrounding the term "form," brilliantly
exposed by Anton Marty in his works on general grammar. It was the term "realism,"
however, which fared especially badly. The uncritical use of this word, so very elusive
in meaning, has had fateful consequences.

What is realism as understood by the theoretician of art? It is an artistic trend which

aims at conveying reality as closely as possible and strives for maximum verisimilitude.
We call realistic those works which we feel accurately depict life by displaying
verisimilitude. Right off we are faced with an ambiguity, namely:

1. Realism may refer to the aspiration and intent of the author; i.e., a work is
understood to be realistic if it is conceived by its author as a display of
verisimilitude, as true to life (meaning A).
2. A work may be called realistic if I, the person judging it, perceive it as true to
life (meaning B).

In the first case, we are forced to evaluate on an intrinsic basis; in the second case, the
reader's individual impression is the decisive criterion. The history of art has hopelessly
confused these two interpretations of the term "realism." An objective and irrefutable
validity is ascribed to individual, private local points of view. The question as to
whether a given work is realistic or not is covertly reduced to the question of what
attitude I take toward it. Thus meaning B imperceptibly replaces meaning A. Classicists,
sentimentalists, the romanticists to a certain extent, even the "realists" of the nineteenth
century, the modernists to a large degree, and, finally, the futurists, expressionists, and
their like have more than once steadfastly proclaimed faithfulness to reality, maximum
verisimilitude--in other words, realism--as the guiding motto of their artistic program.
In the nineteenth century, this motto gave rise to an artistic movement. It was primarily
the late copiers of that trend who outlined the currently recognized history of art, in
particular, the history of literature. Hence, one specific case, one separate artistic
movement was identified as the ultimate manifestation of realism in art and was made
the standard by which to measure the degree of realism in preceding and succeeding
artistic movements. Thus, a new covert identification has occurred, a third meaning of
the word "realism" has crept in (meaning C), one which comprehends the sum total of
the features characteristic of one specific artistic current of the nineteenth century.
In other words, to the literary historians the realistic works of the last century represent
the highest degree of verisimilitude, the maximum faithfulness to life.

Let us now analyze the concept of verisimilitude in art. While in painting and in the
other visual arts the illusion of an objective and absolute faithfulness to reality is
conceivable, "natural" (in Plato's terminology), verisimilitude in a verbal expression or
in a literary description obviously makes no sense whatever. Can the question be raised
about a higher degree of verisimilitude of this or that poetic trope? Can one say that one
metaphor or metonymy is conventional or, so to say, figurative? The methods of
projecting three-dimensional space onto a flat surface are established by convention; the
use of color, the abstracting, the simplification, of the object depicted, and the choice of
reproducible features are all based on convention. It is necessary to learn the
conventional language of painting in order to "see" a picture, just as it is impossible to
understand what is spoken without knowing the language. This conventional, traditional
aspect of painting to a great extent conditions the very act of our visual perception. As
tradition accumulates, the painted image becomes an ideogram, a formula, to which the
object portrayed is linked by contiguity. Recognition becomes instantaneous. We no
longer see a picture. The ideogram needs to be deformed. The artist-innovator must
impose a new form upon our perception, if we are to detect in a given thing those traits
which went unnoticed the day before. He may present the object in an unusual
perspective; he may violate the rules of composition canonized by his predecessors.
Thus Kramskoj, one of the founders of the so-called realist school of Russian painting,
recounts in his memoirs his efforts to deform to the utmost the principles of composition
as advocated by the Academy. The motivation behind this "disorder" was the desire for
a closer approximation of reality. The urge to deform an ideogram usually underlies the
Sturm und Drung stage of new artistic currents.

Everyday language uses a number of euphemisms, including polite formulas,

circumlocutions, allusions, and stock phrases. However, when we want our speech to be
candid, natural, and expressive, we discard the usual polite etiquette and call things by
their real names. They have a fresh ring, and we feel that they are "the right words." But
as soon as the name has merged with the object it designates, we must, conversely,
resort to metaphor, allusion, or allegory if we wish a more expressive term. It will sound
more impressive, it will be more striking. To put it in another way, when searching for a
word which will revitalize an object, we pick a farfetched word, unusual at least in its
given application, a word which is forced into service. Such an unexpected word may,
depending on current usage, be either a figurative or a direct reference to the object.
Examples of this sort are numerous, particularly in the history of obscene vocabulary.
To call the sex act by its own name sounds brazen, but if in certain circles strong
language is the rule, a trope or euphemism is more forceful and effective. Such is the
verb utilizirovat [to utilize] of the Russian hussar. Foreign words are accordingly more
insulting and are readily picked up for such purposes. A Russian may use the absurd
epithets gollandskij [Dutch] or morzovyj [walrus-like] as abusive modifiers of an object
which has nothing to do with either Holland or walruses; the impact of his swearing is
greatly heightened as a result. Instead of the infamous oath involving copulation with
the addressee's mother, the Russian peasant prefers the fantastic image of copulating
with the addressee's soul--and, for further emphasis, uses the negative parallelism: tvoju
dusu ne mat [your soul not your mother].

The same applies to revolutionary realism in literature. The words of yesterday's

narrative grow stale; now the item is described by features that were yesterday held to be
the least descriptive, the least worth representing, features which were scarcely noticed.
"He is fond of dwelling on unessential details" is the classic judgment passed on the
innovators by conservative critics of every era. I leave it to the lover of quotations to
collect similar judgments pronounced on Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Andrei Bely, and
others by their contemporaries. To the followers of a new movement, a description
based on unessential details seems more real than the petrified tradition of their
predecessors. But the perception of those of a more conservative persuasion continues to
be determined by the old canons; they will accordingly interpret any deformation of
these canons by a new movement as a rejection of the principle of verisimilitude, as a
deviation from realism. They will therefore uphold the old canons as the only realistic
ones. Thus, in discussing meaning A of the term "realism" (i.e., the artistic intent to
render life as it is), we see that the definition leaves room for ambiguity:

A1 : The tendency to deform given artistic norms conceived as an approximation

of reality;
A2 : The conservative tendency to remain within the limits of a given artistic
tradition, conceived as faithfulness to reality.

Meaning B presupposes that my subjective evaluation will pronounce a given artistic

fact faithful to reality; thus, factoring in the results obtained, we find:

B1 : I rebel against a given artistic code and view its deformation as a more
accurate rendition of reality;
B2 : I am conservative and view the deformation of the artistic code, to which I
subscribe, as a distortion of reality.
 subscribe, as a distortion of reality.

In the latter case only those artistic facts which do not contradict my artistic values may
be called realistic. But inasmuch as I hold my own values (the tradition to which I
belong) to be the most realistic, and because I feel that within the framework of other
traditions my code cannot be fully realized even if the tradition in question does not
contradict it, I find in these traditions only a partial, embryonic, immature, or decadent
realism. I declare that the only genuine realism is the one on which I was brought up.
Conversely, in the case of B1, my attitude to all artistic formulas contradicting a
particular set of artistic values unacceptable to me would be similar to my attitude in the
case of B2 toward forms which are not in opposition. I can readily ascribe a realistic
tendency (realistic as understood by A1) to forms which were never conceived as such.
In the same way, the Primitives were often interpreted from the point of view of B1.
While their incompatibility with the norms on which we were raised was immediately
evident, their faithful adherence to their own norms and traditions was lost from view
(i.e., A2 was interpreted as A1). Similarly, certain writings may be felt and interpreted
as poetry, although not all meant as such. Consider Gogol's pronouncement about the
poetic qualities of an inventory of the Muscovite crown jewels, Novalis's observation
about the poetic nature of the alphabet, the statement of the Futurist Krucenyx about the
poetic sound of a laundry list, or that of the poet Xlebnikov claiming that at times a
misprint can be an artistically valid distortion of a word.

The concrete content of A1, A2, B1, and B2 is extremely relative. Thus a contemporary
critic might detect realism in Delacroix, but not in Delaroche; in El Greco and Andrei
Rublev, but not in Guido Reni; in a Scythian idol, but not in the Laocoon. A directly
opposite judgment, however, would have been characteristic of a pupil of the Academy
in the previous century. Whoever senses faithfulness to life in Racine does not find it in
Shakespeare, and vice versa.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, a group of painters struggled in Russia on
behalf of realism (the first phase of C, i.e., a special case of A1). One of them, Repin,
painted a picture, "Ivan the Terrible Kills His Son." Repin's supporters greeted it as
realistic (C, a special case of B1). Repin's teacher at the Academy, however, was
appalled by the lack of realism in the painting, and he carefully itemized all the
instances of Repin's distortion of verisimilitude by comparison with the academic canon
which was for him the only guarantee of verisimilitude (i.e., from the standpoint of B2).

****

Meanwhile, those art historians who, as we have already indicated, were primarily
associated with the later imitators of "realism" by virtue of their aesthetic code (the
second phase of C), arbitrarily equated C and B2, even though C is in fact simply a
special case of B. As we know, meaning B covertly replaces A, so that the whole
difference between A1 and A2 is lost, and the destruction of ideographs is understood
only as a means of creating new ones. The conservative, of course, fails to recognize the
self-sufficient aesthetic value of deformation. Thus, supposedly having A in mind
(actually A2), the historian of art addresses himself to C. Therefore, when a literary
historian brilliantly declares that "Russian literature is typically realistic," his statement
is tantamount to saying, "Man is typically twenty years old."

As the tradition equating realism with C became established, the new realist artists (in
the A1 sense) were compelled to call themselves neorealists, realists in the higher sense
of the word, or naturalists, and they drew a line between quasi- or pseudo-realism (C)
and what they conceived to be genuine realism (i.e., their own). "I am a realist, but only
in the higher sense of the word," Dostoyevski declared. And an almost identical
declaration has been made in turn by the Symbolists, by Italian and Russian Futurists, by
German Expressionists, and so on and on. These neorealists have at various times
completely identified their aesthetic platforms with realism in general, and, therefore, in
evaluating the representatives of C, they had to expel them from the ranks of realism.
Thus posthumous criticism has periodically questioned the realism of Gogol,
Dostoyevski, Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Ostrovski.

The manner in which C itself is characterized by historians of art, especially historians

of literature, is very vague and approximate. We must not forget that the imitators were
those who decided which characteristics typified realism. A closer analysis will no doubt
replace C with a number of more precise values and will reveal that certain devices
which we indiscriminately associate with C are by no means typical of all the
representatives of the so-called realist school; the same devices are in fact also found
outside the realist school.

We have already mentioned the characterization of progressive realism in terms of

unessential details. One such device--cultivated, incidentally, by a number of the
representatives of the C school (in Russia, the so-called Gogol school) and for that
reason sometimes incorrectly identified with C--is the condensation of the narrative by
means of images based on contiguity, i.e., the use of the normal designative term. This
"condensation" is realized either in spite of the plot or by eliminating the plot entirely.
"condensation" is realized either in spite of the plot or by eliminating the plot entirely.
Let us take a crude example from Russian literature, that of the suicides of Poor Liza
and Anna Karenina. Describing Anna's suicide, Tolstoy primarily writes about her
handbag. Such an unessential detail would have made no sense to Karamzin, although
Karamzin's own tale (in comparison with the eighteenth-century adventure novel) would
likewise seem but a series of unessential details. If the hero of an eighteenth-century
adventure novel encounters a passer-by, it may be taken for granted that the latter is of
importance either to the hero or, at least, to the plot. But it is obligatory in Gogol or
Tolstoy or Dostoyevski that the hero first meet an unimportant and (from the point of
view of the story) superfluous passer-by, and that their resulting conversation should
have no bearing on the story. Since such a device is frequently thought to be realistic, we
will denote it by D, stressing that this D is often found within C.

A pupil is asked to solve a problem: "A bird flew out of its cage; how soon will it reach
the forest, if it flies at such a such a speed per minute, and the distance between the cage
and the forest is such and such?" "What color is the cage?" asks the child. This child is
a typical realist in the D sense of the word.

Or, an anecdote of the type known as an Armenian riddle: "It hangs in the drawing room
and is green; what is it?" The answer: "A herring."--"Why in a drawing room?"--"Well,
why couldn't it hang there?"--"Why green?"--"It was painted green."--"But why?"--"To
make it harder to guess." This desire to conceal the answer, this deliberate effort to
delay recognition, brings out a new feature, the newly improvised epithet. Exaggeration
in art is unavoidable, wrote Dostoyevski; in order to show an object, it is necessary to
deform the shape it used to have; it must be tinted, just as slides to be viewed under a
microscope are tinted. You color your object in an original way and think that it has
become more palpable, clearer, more real (A1). In a Cubist's picture, a single object is
multiplied and shown from several points of view; thus it is made more tangible. This is
a device used in painting. But it is also possible to motivate and justify this device in the
painting itself; an object is doubled when reflected in a mirror. The same is true of
literature. The herring is green because it has been painted; a startling epithet results,
and the trope becomes an epic motif. Why did you paint it? The author will always have
an answer, but, in fact, there is only one right answer: "To make it harder to guess."

Thus a strange term may be foisted on an object or asserted as a particular aspect of it.
Negative parellelism explicitly rejects metaphorical substitution for its proper term: "I
am not a tree, I am a woman," says the girl in a poem by the Czech poet Sramek. This
literary construction can be justified; from a special narrative feature, it can become a
detail of plot development: "Some said, 'These are the footprints of an ermine'; others
reported, 'No, these are not the footprints of an ermine; it was Curila Plenkovic passing
by.'" Inverted negative parallelism rejects a normally used term and employs a metaphor
(in the Sramek poem quoted earlier: "I am not a woman, I am a tree," or the following
from a play by another Czech poet, Capek: "What is this?--A handkerchief.--But it is
not a handkerchief. It is a beautiful woman standing by the window. She's dressed all in
white and is dreaming of love."

In Russian erotic tales, copulation is frequently stated in terms of inverted parallelism;

the same is true of wedding songs, with the difference that in the latter, the constructions
using metaphors are not usually justified, while in the former these metaphors find
motivation as the means by which the cunning hero can seduce the fair maid, or as an
interpretation of human copulation by an animal incapable of comprehending it. From
time to time, the consistent motivation and justification of poetic constructions have also
been called realism. Thus the Czech novelist Capek-Chod in his tale, "The Westernmost
Slav," slyly calls the first chapter, in which "romantic" fantasy is motivated by typhoid
delirium, a "realistic chapter."

Let us use E to designate such realism, i.e., the requirement of consistent motivation and
realization of poetic devices. This E is often confused with C, B, etc. By failing to
distinguish among the variety of concepts latent in the term "realism," theoreticians and
historians of art--in particular, of literature--are acting as if the term were a bottomless
sack into which everything and anything could be conveniently hidden away.

This objection may be made: no, not everything. No one will call Hoffmann's fantastic
tales realistic. But does this not indicate that there is somehow a single meaning in the
word "realism," that there is, after all, a common denominator?

My answer is: no one will call a "key" a "lock," but this does not mean that the word
"lock" has only one meaning. We cannot equate with impunity the various meanings of
the word "realism" just as we cannot, unless we wish to be called mad, equate a hair
lock with a padlock. It is true that the various meanings of some words (for example,
"bill") are far more distinct from one another than they are in the case of the word
"realism," where we can imagine a set of facts about which we could simultaneously
say, this is realism in the meaning of C, B, or A1, etc., of the word. Nevertheless, it is
inexcusable to confuse C, B, A1, etc. A term once used in American slang to denote a
socially inept person was "turkey." There are probably "turkeys" in Turkey, and there are
doubtless men named Harry who are blessed with great amounts of hair. But we may
doubtless men named Harry who are blessed with great amounts of hair. But we may
not jump to conclusions concerning the social aptitudes of the Turks nor the hairiness of
men named Harry. This "commandment" is self-evident to the point of imbecility, yet
those who speak of artistic realism continually sin against it.

--Translated from Russian by Karol Magassy

Back to CONTEXT No. 9

About Us | Library Alliance Program | Funding a Series | Special Sale | NEWS

Dalkey Archive Press | R C F | CONTEXT | Author Interviews

Employment Opportunities | Text Adoptions | Casebook Studies | Educational Programs | Order Info

Home | Contact Us | Mailing List | Search | Links